Courtney Love: The Queen of Noise [ILLUSTRATED] (Mass Market Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

"I am not a woman. I'm a force of nature."

Courtney Love knows exactly what she is. She created herself: demon diva, goddess of grunge, media super-icon, wife of the late rock megastar Kurt Cobain. Lead singer of the band Hole, her persona is larger than life -- bellowing, ranting, riling up the masses. She was made for the spotlight, and she rules it like a dark angel, her on- and offstage presence seething with such power, venom, and raw sexual fury that she obliterates everyone else on the music scene today.

"I want to be the girl with the most cake."

Courtney Love may have achieved her goal of becoming a self-made celebrity, but her hungry climb to fame wasn't easy. It took her from a troubled childhood to the sleazy underworld of strip joints to the hardcore drug scene. She was institutionalized as a juvenile delinquent, tormented as a rock groupie, and driven to near suicide as a grieving widow. Then there was her tumultuous relationship with Kurt Cobain -- a sweet-and-sour marriage of twisted passion that ended tragically with a shotgun blast.

Here at last the true Courtney Love is revealed...the headstrong hellraiser in a baby-doll dress...the raucous performer ripping up the airwaves, at war with her public image and herself...the unstoppable survivor forever rising from the ashes only to burn more brightly....

About the Author

Melissa Rossi is an award-winning journalist whose articles have appeared in Newsweek, Mademoiselle, Cosmopolitan, Newsday, The New York Observer, and Spin. She is the coauthor of Freak Like Me, the autobiography of circus performer Jim Rose, and, as Babs Babylon, she wrote the popular nightlife column, "In the Dark," for the Seattle Weekly.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Pocket; illustrated edition edition (May 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671000381
• ISBN-13: 978-0671000387
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #495,738 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars What a horrible collection of gossip. . ., September 3, 2003

By	"peer_amidst_the_pyramids" (Boise, Idaho United States) - See all my reviews

The author claims to have respect for Courtney's achievements, but every page of this book drips with scorn. At one point she wastes an entire page reviewing Ms. Love's appearance in a derogatory manner, only to report on Ms. Love's plastic surgery later in the book with even more scorn. Lady, make up your mind.

At the beginning of the book she reports on her one-time co-author's scheming to make money off of Courtney's private thoughts, and then later describes said co-author's relationship with Courtney purely from his point of view, despite the fact that he is willing to say or do anything for the sake of publicity.

The good parts: Nothing, really. Read the book by Poppy Z. Brite, if you want good.

17 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Save your money..."Queen of Noise" ain't worth it, August 29, 1997

By	[e-mail] (Toronto, Canada) - See all my reviews

This book was practically painful to read. I was looking forward to it, being a big fan of Courtney Love's. Having heard about it on the internet through the Hole mailing list Hole Lotta Love and the newsgroup alt.fan.courtney-love, I enthusiastically plonked down my $7.99 at Toronto's World's Biggest Bookstore. What a mistake, when I realize now I could have bought some nail polish, new shoe laces and a frappucino for that much. Rossi's main source for info seems to be some obscure ex-boyfriend of Courtney's. Yeah, now *there's* a reliable and honest perspective. I'm not sure whether Rossi is a Love champion or not...she seems to admire her but examines all the awful things she's allegedly done. Love's life is a compelling story; I'm looking forward to the Poppy Z. Brite biography even more after reading this crap. Better writing would certainly have raised this above 7-11 cheesy rock bio. Unfortunately, that's where I feel Rossi's work should remain. She even gets simple facts such as significant dates wrong. I was thoroughly disappointed...I feel Love deserves so much better than this garbage. I'm not defending her as a person; I don't know if she's stolen or lied or what. I just really didn't enjoy this book. A friend of mine in Seattle that I lent this to (in order to save her money) says she couldn't even read it. .."I just looked at the pictures"

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Hole fan's take on this book, August 8, 2001

By	"evilgrrlfriday" (the US of A) - See all my reviews

Melissa Rossi's painfully honest, warts-and-all portrayal of the infamous rock goddess Courtney Love is surprisingly well written and researched. Ms. Rossi even goes into the details of the year and the day Courtney Love entered this world.

Her writing and sentence structure is beautiful, descriptive and lyrical. Take for example this line (no spoilers here): "... the high priestess of rock and roll ... simultaneously one with headspinner Linda Blair and Glinda the Good ... the Dark Angel followed by tragedy, the Drama Queen who lived life like a movie, the Black Widow unable to find a new boyfriend, the Wicket Witch of the Northwest who ranted about the Seattle drug scene while admitting to her own occasional heroin use, the media victim forever calling attention to herself."

However, one thing that does mar this book is although Ms. Rossi claims that she likes Courtney Love "every other day", it seems she's written the bulk of the pages on those off days. The beginning chapter is nearly enough to turn the most inveterate Courtney lover against the singer with its graphic, uncompromising and at times almost vicious account/dissection of Love's antics on tour. The times when she referred to Love in her pre-surgery days as a "dumpling" and a "sack of flour" get annoying after a while, as well as her overly sympathetic portrayals of Courtney's various enemies, especially Mary Lou Lord. Love is no saint, but I doubt it any of them are paragons of virtue either.

Beyond that chapter, "Queen of Noise" takes you on an ultimately compelling journey that is alternately horrifying and fascinating through Love's world: from an unhappy child living with her hippie mom in a Eugene, Oregon commune to the rock star she is today. It charts her path through juvenile delinquency, sleazy strip clubs, drug addiction, failed affairs, a promising movie career starting with "Sid and Nancy" that crashed into an all time low for her, her tempestuous and ill-fated romance with Kurt Cobain and the birth of her child in a whirlwind of controversy.

However, at the end, Rossi sums it up with her assessment of Love that I wholeheartedly agree with: glowing admiration at this amazing and talented woman's stunning resilience, inner strength and determination. As Rossi says in a foreword: "Courtney is a one word contradiction."